The day I realized I had chosen the right sport.

 This year was my sophomore year of cross country. By about 3 meets in I was already having a bad season. I was having problems with side stitches in every race and I was doing everything I could to get rid of them but nothing was working. All of my times this year were about a minute and a half worse than my PR last year which was 20:34 and it was all because of these side stitches. On September 30 we had a race in Washington, Missouri. I was really excited about this race because I had medaled 21st in it last year. About a quarter of a mile into the race I started feeling a really sharp pain in my calves and shins. By three quarters of a mile I could barely walk and I had my coaches telling me to pull off the course. I had gotten passed by nearly everyone when I'm normally in the front. By about the 1 mile, I had finally listens to my coaches and my mom pulled me off the course. I talked to the trainer and he pretty much said that my season was over. I knew I at least had shin splints but what was weird is that it came out of nowhere. After 2 days of missing school and barely able to walk, I went to the doctor and got x-rays. Of course, nothing shows up because unless it's extremely bad stress fractures, they won't see anything. I went home and got an elevator key from the school. Now it's been about 2 weeks and still no improvement. I had missed GAC and therefore won't be able to compete in Districts. I had made my injury even worse because I tried to run warm ups at GAC because I just couldn't accept the fact that my season was over. I felt like I was giving up by not trying. I went home and started crying. I went to the orthopedist the next day and he orders an MRI telling me that it might be stress fractures and it would take 2-3 months to heal. I immediately burst into tears again realizing that I might have had a chance to run again but I had made it worse by trying to run GAC. Before this injury, I hadn't realized how much running meant to me, but now that I currently can't run, I feel like my life is over, I feel like I lost a whole season of XC that I needed to improve and use to get on varsity. Please cherish every second you have on your cross country team because it goes away so fast and you never know if you might get an injury that will take it away faster. 

~Sincerely, 

Ethan Hunn, a runner from Missouri ( @hunn_31102 )